An attorney for family members in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New York related to four victims of Pan Am Flight 103 claims Bank of America refused to accept $7.7 million in compensation checks this week.
"This is a lot of money," said Washington attorney Mark Zaid on Friday. "But how am I supposed to disburse this settlement money if I can't deposit it in the bank?"
Zaid said Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America, the nation's largest commercial bank, has not explained to him why it refused to take the deposits.
Spokesmen for Bank of America could not be reached for comment yesterday.
The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 by Libyan terrorists killed 259 passengers and crew members, including 189 Americans, over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. The victims included four people from Westmoreland County.
Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi agreed in 2003 to pay a total of $2.7 billion to the families of those killed. About $2.1 billion has been disbursed. The money was transferred to the U.S. government, which selected JPMorgan Chase as the financial trustee.
Each victim's family received an average of $10 million, paid in three installments, said Zaid. An average of about $4 million was paid in 2003, $4 million in 2004, and nearly $2 million this month.
"I've been on this case for 15 years, and doing settlements for almost five years," said Zaid. For instance, he deposited about $16 million of Pan Am flight victim compensation into Citibank accounts in 2003 and 2004.
On Monday, the attorney tried to deposit four checks -- each for $1,932,500 -- into his trust account at Bank of America. From that account he expected to disburse the money to the four family members entitled to the compensation. Acting with power of attorney, Zaid customarily should have been able to make those deposits.
Zaid tried to contact several Bank of America officials -- all the way up to CEO Kenneth Lewis -- to push through the deposits. But he was stymied by red tape or simply the bank's failure to respond.
Given the Bank of America roadblock, the attorney later persuaded JPMorgan Chase to wire-transfer the funds directly into his clients' respective bank accounts.
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